Yumi-chan: Script edits and guidebook

Just a brief update on the current status of Yumi-chan.

Been editing the script per advice of beta readers, and I wound up reworking a bigger chunk than I'd intended. Also started on the guidebook! It is probably laughably bad to someone who actually knows things about graphic design, but what can you do. It will include an interview with the artist Chiikaboom, lots of shiny pictures, and more!

I plan to purchase A Little Lily Princess and cover it as my next game review. Was planning to do the beta, but money has been really tight the past couple weeks. It's looking up now though! I had the privilege to participate in the alpha testing (I think that's the proper term) of A Little Lily Princess a while back and am interested to see how the game has progressed.

I've also been taking steps to get my poetry collection, fractured starlight, ready for publication. It will be the next project that comes out after Yumi-chan. It could not be more different than Yumi-chan. It will be commercial, but not very pricey. I'll probably do a little preview of it on Patreon once the time gets closer.

So, look forward to all of these things!

Progress Report?

I really need to come up with a good name for development updates that doesn't sound weird or boring.

Anywho! I'm not normally up at this time of day and I'm tired as fuck, so here's a few quick updates.

Yumi-chan's Wonderful Cake Shop

CGs are almost done, with backgrounds to start next. Artist has hopes to get all the backgrounds done by mid-March, so we're tentatively looking at releasing in April. Emphasis on tentatively, though.

NaNoReNo

I've teamed up with some nice folks for NaNoReNo this year, though I will refrain from giving out details until later on.

Reviews

I've had a review almost done for days, but IRL stuff is getting in the way. Soooooooon.

Other

Fuck I'm tired all the time.

As an apology for how sad and bare this update feels, here is the title screen image for Yumi-chan.

For those who want to know more, I'm pretty active on Twitter, and if you pledge to me on Patreon, I post exclusive behind-the-scenes content on stuff I'm working on.

See you next time!

Year End - Heading Into 2016

Hello, folks. This is a condensed version of my Patreon post regarding the year's end and what plans for 2016 are.

I intended to have Yumi-chan's Wonderful Cake Shop done by now, but unexpected delays ended up making that impossible. Currently progress is being made and I am projecting release for spring 2016. I will keep you guys posted on how that goes.

I am working on other projects, and have decided the visual novel I'm going to be focusing on. I want to have my second visual novel out in 2016 as well, but I'm not sure how financially feasible that is. We'll have to see.

In closing, I thought that my first roughly-a-year of video game production went as swimmingly as it could for a newbie such as myself. I released three games, small though they were, and am actively working on others. I feel like I've gotten somewhere.

Thank you to all my followers. I appreciate your support.

Oh, and one last thing...

Yumi-chan's completed sprite! :)

Officially announcing "the last love song"

I tend to hold off on announcing projects until I have enough writing done that I know it's not just a one-off idea I had, and I can finish the project and not abandon it. Tonight I think I reached that point with the game I've been working on recently.

It will be called "the last love song" (yes I love my lack of capital letters, it's a habit). It's a tricky one to write because it's all about relationship difficulties and it's a bit of a personal subject. However, I hope to have it finished up in early December.

If you pledge any amount to me on Patreon, you can view a few preview images of the game in the posts section.

Also, the new artist for Yumi-chan should have some sprite sketches for me this week, so that's something to look forward to as well. Yay!

On bad luck and determination, both things you can also find in Undertale

Have I mentioned that Undertale is awesome yet? Yeah...Undertale is awesome.

So, it turns out I am not a lucky developer. Yumi-chan's Wonderful Cake Shop has taken a slight setback...the original artist seems to have dropped contact with me. I will not be naming them here, as witch hunts serve no good purpose. I ask that if you for whatever reason saved any of the original art that I posted as a preview a while back, you not share it publicly, and if you happen to know who my artist was, you NOT go yelling at them, as that would help nothing. Also, the logo will not be affected, as I commissioned it from a different artist.

Honestly, I bear them no ill feelings. My only feeling is disappointment that I have to start the artwork process over again. I do have another artist lined up who is starting on things, but it's a bit sad to have the script for Yumi-chan completely finished (pending a few more beta reader comments) and have nothing for it to do for a while yet. But, them's how it goes. At least I'm learning from this, right?

In other news, I've been focusing a bit more on Twine lately, since I don't need any outside help for those games. I'd like to thank everyone who played my latest, lucky me, as well as everyone who continues to follow me despite my shortcomings. I do in fact have another Twine game in the works, and have been piecing around with two girls at the end of the world a bit as well. I also have multiple visual novel ideas I've been playing with.

In short, I apologize for these delays. They are out of my control, but I can't help feeling guilty. I hope to have more to show you soon.

Yumi-chan's Wonderful Cake Shop website page now up!

Here is the shiny thing I alluded to recently...

The logo for Yumi-chan's Wonderful Cake Shop!

I have also created a website page for the game, which you can view here.

Thanks for your support!

Circus Rambles - On being a hybrid of development updates and random stuff

I can't really call this completely a development update, because I have other things to talk about. So it's a halfa. Like in Danny Phantom. Yes.

I apologize for being a bit quiet lately. The personal life has been beating me over the head with the difficulty stick. But despite this, progress has finally been made! If you look closely at the development status sections of this blog and my website, you will notice that Yumi-chan's Wonderful Cake Shop has had an update! I completed the first draft of the script last night and am working to get it to beta readers. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, but maybe I've made some terrible mistake that needs to be caught. We shall see.

Next on the to-do list:

- Complete a review that was requested of me that I've taken far too long in doing. (I'M SORRY ;-;)
- Start scripting some other, hopefully commercial game. I have a few ideas but I'm not sure which one to work on yet, despite copious polling and advice.
- Play some of the games in my Steam library and write reviews for them, in the hopes that it de-stresses me a bit.
- Continue to direct Yumi-chan's artists as necessary.
- Sell my soul so I'm not quite so poor.

Also, I've recently been receiving more blog views, and I'm quite happy about that. :) Thanks to all my readers, and also to my new followers on Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook. And, of course, to my first ever Patron. I appreciate all of you guys, and I hope to dazzle you with something amazing soon.

Out of curiosity, I did a little list just to see which of my reviews have the most views, and as of yet the list goes as follows:

1. eden*
2. HuniePop
3. Blank Dream
4. Black Closet
5. Sword Daughter

I'm interested in using this as a way to figure out what sites have the most traffic and how to get some reviews a bit better read.

Just for completion's sake, a list of the lowest. (Going from five to one this time, with one being the lowest amount of views.)

5. no-one has to die
4. Analogue: A Hate Story
3. Ib
2. The Mirror Lied
1. Venus Meets Venus/Always Sometimes Monsters (tied for lowest view count with a whopping nine views each!)

The only game that was really done when I didn't have followers is no-one has to die; it was one of my first reviews ever. Some of the rest are older RPG games, so it makes sense that they'd get way fewer views. This is all a lot to consider!

For tonight, I'm going to try to not worry so much about everything, and probably fail miserable, but at least I'll give it a shot.

General Development Update #4

Yumi-chan's Wonderful Cake Shop

Writing progresses slowly.

IFComp 2015

I am entering IFComp 2015! For those who don't know, it's a yearly interactive fiction competition. I have until September 28 to write my marvelous game. I don't want to give away too much, but I'll probably eventually start teasing bits of it.

For more information on IFComp, visit their website.

Patreon

I now have a Patreon page! You are not under any obligation whatsoever to donate, but if you want to take a look, click here.

To close things out, a little Patreon promo image made by Black Rabbit Illustrations and edited by me:

General Development Update #3

The Prince and the Wolf

Writing has kind of slowed down on this one, to be honest. Both the artist and myself have been rather tied up with personal life stuff. I'm going to try to work on it more tonight, though.

The Tower

I've taken this one off the development list for now, as I'm not actively working on it at the moment.

Yumi-chan's Wonderful Cake Shop

This one kind of quietly crept into development, didn't it? The script is progressing nicely and I'll probably start recruitment for artwork and GUI soon. As for what it's about...Well, all I want to say for now is that it's a short kinetic novel about a man who meets a young cake shop owner and how his life changes from there. There will be lots of cake and cookies, probably.

Sheets

This is an interactive fiction game I made in Twine, and....it is ready for release! Just as soon as I work out hosting and get my actual website up to speed. Look forward to it!

Actual Website

The website is coming along all right; still needs some tinkering before I can officially unveil it, though.

So look forward to a text-based game, a website, and other fun things!